Meet the Designers

If you’re someone who’s curious to delve into pattern design for the first time, we have just the interview for you. This week we’re getting to know Dutch designer Heleen van den Thillart, who joins us from the heart of Rotterdam, Netherlands where she lives with her spouse and two children. Heleen discovered Spoonflower as a way to earn money doing something she loved while raising her young family. She had never designed patterns for fabric before, so using Spoonflower’s design challenges as a springboard, she decided to commit to it for a year. Not only is Heleen now publishing new designs weekly, but she’s also secured licensing deals with companies large and small. How cool is that? Keep reading because we promise you’ll be running for your art supplies by the end of this post!

My day starts with…

“Early morning snuggles with the whole family. I do not function before 7 o’clock in the morning, so my kids (ages 1 and 4) are allowed to crawl in bed with us to cuddle and play. During the day I stay home with them which sometimes can create a struggle to get work done since they don’t have the same nap schedules. I make up for it in the evenings, though, unless I don’t have the energy to work after a day with the kids. That’s when I will watch a movie or binge a series on the couch. But, I love to draw and design so it’s often not a problem to sit behind my desk in the evenings. It doesn’t feel like work at all. Except when I have to do my taxes, but nobody likes that anyway, right?”

Welcome to another edition of Spoonflower’s Meet the Designer series! This week we’re introducing surface pattern designer, Heather Dutton, who resides in the quaint coastal town of Kennebunk right on the southern tip of Maine. Heather began her career as a fashion designer in San Francisco but she quickly fell in love with designing seamless patterns in the process. Shortly after, Heather diverted her career to follow her heart launching Hang Tight Studio. We’re so happy to share Heather’s story with the community today—we know you’ll gain your own dose of inspiration.

My day starts with:

“An embarrassing amount of coffee while I check my emails and look at yummy images on Flickr, Pinterest & Instagram. Once I’m fueled up I head to the beach for a long walk with my sweet Sussex Spaniel, Gracie Mae, before I settle into my studio for a day filled with designing and Netflix binging.”

Welcome to the Halloween edition of our Meet the Designer series! This week, we’re showcasing the frighteningly adorable designs of Johanna Parker. Tucked between Denver and the Rocky Mountains, Johanna lives in Lakewood, Colorado with her husband and black cat, Jack, in what looks to us as the perfect fairytale-like home prime for inspiration. Not only is Johanna a fabric designer and illustrator, but she also makes papier-mâché sculptures reminiscent of vintage Halloween decoration. Grab a handful of Halloween candy and nestle in because we’re so thrilled to share this spirited interview with you!

My day starts with:

“The happy sound of purring from our black cat, Jack. He’s always excited when we wake! Then, that rolling list of creative to-do’s switches on. A hot cup of black coffee or tea and perhaps a piece of dark chocolate helps to kick-start the day.”

In our next meet the designer spotlight, we sit down with the wildly creative, Holli Zollinger, to find out what inspires her iconic bohemian style that instantly established her as a Spoonflower community favorite. Holli comes to us today from Moab, Utah, which she describes as, “An amazing destination for travelers from all over the world.” Holli loves the vast and open feel in Moab, describing the color, texture and variety in the landscape as “So very extraordinary!“And get this—she’s currently living in a 1974 Carpenter Bus that she’s renovated to serve as her living space while she builds an eco-friendly and sustainable home. We’re greatly inspired and impressed by Holli to say the very least!

If the name ‘Scrummy’ sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Nottingham, UK resident Sharon Turner, or scrummy as known in the Spoonflower Marketplace, has been a Spoonflower designer for the past seven years and a creative maker for even longer. “Growing up, whenever anyone asked me what I was working on, I’d say ‘something scrummy’ (short for scrumptious). I was always drawing, painting, sewing, crocheting, making paperweights, just about anything crafty and colourful. I used to make soft furnishings and jewellery before designing full time. So ‘Scrummy Things‘ worked well as a business name.” We’re thrilled to have Sharon visiting us on the blog today, so let’s dig right in!

My day starts with:

“Much coffee. Emails and Facebook. Then about 5 or 6 movies. I can’t work listening to music as I end up bopping around, so it’s pretty much back to back horror and sci-fi. As a general rule, the scarier the movie, the cuter the design.”

Our next interview features hands-on surface pattern designer, Micklyn Le Feuvre, otherwise known simply as micklyn in the Spoonflower Marketplace. Micklyn, her husband and their eleven children reside in beautiful Somerset West, a small town situated along the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. Their bustling home is full-to-the-absolute-brim of imagination, love and inspiration as artistic talent runs in the family: Micklyn’s grandmother had a passion for painting and one of Micklyn’s daughters shares the creative spark as well. We hope you enjoy a bit of inspiration yourself with a dip into her daily life.

My day starts with…

“A cup of Earl Grey or Rooibos tea made for me by one of my lovely children as I snuggle with the baby. Then, I read my Bible and drink more tea. Because we homeschool our eleven children, our mornings are lazy and laid-back affairs, nobody has to rush off anywhere. I love it.”

Up-and-coming surface pattern designer Katerina Izotova joins us on the blog with her brilliant patterns full of whimsy and texture. Hailing from Moscow, Russia, Katerina draws daily inspiration from the world around her, bringing to life a unique vision of playful watercolor motifs where vibrant color work speaks for itself. We are absolutely swooning over Katerina’s design aesthetic and jumped on the opportunity to find out a bit more on how she moves through her creative process. Read on and get inspired!

My day starts with:“Breakfast, coffee and ‘morning pages’; an idea I got from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.”

Samarra Khaja, or SammyK as she’s known on Spoonflower, is not only a designer and community favorite, she’s also a talented pattern-maker (see this and this), has a much-loved class on Skillshare and consistently finds ways to inspire other designers and makers. Much of Samarra’s own inspiration is centered around New York City—in fact, if her two-story house grew legs and stood up, she’d be able to see the Empire State Building from her upstairs office. (She’s still waiting for it to do that.) Enjoy our candid chat with Samarra below!

My day starts with:
“Coffee, getting my kids ready to go to school, coming home to my studio and plotting what’s next on my never-ending to-do list. I also typically forget to eat when I should and always seem to hatch new creative brainwaves moments before I’m supposed to leave the house. Always!”

Our latest featured designer’s love for all things historical is the inspiration behind her aesthetic for Peacoquette Designs. Sarah Walden is based in East Nashville, Tennessee, in a “wee stone cottage” with her husband, David, and daughter, Emily Haddyr. It’s there that her range of digital tools and skills help her transform public domain images into surface designs for today’s modern aesthetic, breathing new life into forgotten, yet beautiful antique prints. Get to know Sarah and see some of her most popular designs below!

Christina (Friztin on Spoonflower) has been with our design community for a while now, and we have always been fans of her abstract, textural signature style. She was randomly selected to win our giveaway for a free pass to the Makers Summit Conference, where we had a chance to chat and get to know her a bit better. We knew we had to interview Christina so that our community could hear her story as well. Follow along as Christina shares her influences and how she got started in design!

Friztin’s color swatches help her plan the palettes she uses in her designs